Saturday, November 1, 2014

Amtrak confronts freight in Supreme Court battle

....For Amtrak travelers, such schedule-shredding snafus are becoming
more common as delays push long-distance train punctuality to its lowest
point in years, driving off customers and raising costs.

Along the 15 routes in the railroad's national network, on-time
performance was 41 percent in August, compared to 66 percent a year
earlier, even with a fudge factor that allows trains to reach their end
destination as much as a half-hour late and still be counted as on time.
Worst off were passengers on the Capitol Limited, which runs daily
between Chicago and Washington, D.C. For August, travelers between the
two cities had about a 3 percent chance of arriving on time, the most
recent available statistics show.

By many indicators, "the situation is worsening, not improving,"
D.J. Stadtler, Amtrak's vice president of operations, said at a Surface
Transportation Board hearing last month.....

....The case is now before the Supreme Court, with oral arguments scheduled for Dec. 8.

The legal crux is the fuzzy question of whether Amtrak, a creation
of Congress that is supposed to be run as a for-profit business, should
be considered a private enterprise or government agency.

In court papers, parties on both sides paint the practical stakes in
stark terms. The appellate court ruling "thwarts the intent of Congress
and threatens the future of passenger rail service in the United
States," the Environmental Law and Policy Center, a Chicago-based
advocacy group that supports "clean transportation," said in a
friend-of-the-court filing..... read more here